Sweet peppers are very rich in vitamins and minerals, it contains proteins and sugars, fatty and essential oils, citric, malic and oxalic acid. One fruit of the pepper contains the daily requirement of vitamin P, and the content of vitamin C makes it a true champion among vegetables. So sweet pepper has long been firmly established in the list of the most beloved garden crops, which are grown in home gardens.

Peretz belongs to the Solanaceae family, which is very susceptible to late blight. But this attack bypasses pepper party. Caring for them is very simple, and it can grow even novice gardeners. But in order to relieve the summer a rich harvest this vegetable, you need to know how to grow seedlings of pepper.

When growing seedlings in the greenhouse or home seeds can be planted in pots or cups with a diameter of 8-10 cm, seedlings cassette or standard potted. The warm greenhouses they are planted directly into the ground. Often the seeds are planted in the first box, and after the appearance of the first true leaves them dive in pots.

Preparation of seeds

Before the seedlings grow peppers, seeds must be prepared to give more pepper and stable yield. It is necessary, first of all, to choose the good seeds. Then, to prepare them for planting, in order to grow the seedlings are well. For starters, you can sort the seeds on the eye by omitting the broken lines, small and empty. Then, the seeds should be etched in a slightly warm solution of potassium permanganate dark purple. Seeds need to hold it 20-30min, and then rinse thoroughly with running water.

Then, the seeds need to be warmed up. This can be done by placing them in a flask for two hours, where the water temperature is 40-50 ° C. One can heat the seeds in warm running water. This dramatically increases the germination of seeds - After this training, they germinate faster. Now, the seeds are ready for sowing.

Soil Preparation

Sweet pepper, in contrast to the bitter, is not very well tolerated by the pick, so the expensive varieties of pepper is better to plant in a separate bowl. But on the other hand, the seedlings of pepper grows changed "taste", and if the first is good to take a nutritious blend of vegetable garden and humus soil in equal proportions, then the subsequent stages of seedlings more "like" loose soil with less nitrogen, but rich in other minerals. For example, a mixture of sawdust and peat in a ratio of 7: 3. To do this, mixed in different amounts and lowland peat moss, although you can use a clean malorazlozhivshiysya turf horse with the proviso that it will be added to lime materials, removes excess acidity. To feed in the soil mixture in a bucket of soil need to add 30-40g of superphosphate, urea 7-10g, 3 g of magnesium sulfate and potassium sulfate 10-15g.

If you do not dive pepper, it can be left in any of the mixes. Then it will yield less than the picks, but the loss is not so great, so yielding varieties with experiment is not necessary.

Growing seedlings

If you are interested in how to grow peppers at home, then you should know that before in boxes or pots fall asleep soil mixture on the bottom it is necessary to put the good drainage so that water does not stagnate, and the roots do not rot. In the box you need to pour a layer of 7-8 cm thick soil mixture on top of the drainage layer. The soil surface is aligned, and then held therein grooves spaced at 5-6cm. These grooves are arranged at a distance of 1-2 cm from each other pre-prepared seeds. The wells in the cup or grooves in a box covered with a layer of sand or humus thickness of 0, 5 cm. After this, the soil should be tamped down.

Planted seeds should be well watered from a watering can, keeping it low to avoid strong jet of water to wash away the seeds from the soil. Then, the container can be covered with plastic wrap or glass. Thereafter, pre-emergence, capacity put in a warm place. It is not necessary that it be light. To grow well, pepper seeds need a temperature of 22-28 ° C, so the house can put a box near the battery, making sure that it does not dry up the land.

Care for seedlings

Pepper - photophilous plant, so he loves good lighting. When shoots begin to appear, with container seedlings just need to rearrange the lighted place, for example, on the windowsill. If no such place, it is necessary to provide illumination lamp. Lamp and needed to highlight the seedlings during prolonged cloudy weather. Dosvechivat they need as much going on daylight in clear weather.

It is necessary to carefully monitor that the seedlings did not get even a short time under the draft. Because of them, it will weaken, will get sick and may even die. This often happens when the pepper seedlings growing on the windowsill at home, so be sure to check out the possibility of drafts or wherever you put pepper seedlings. Do not place near the seedlings parted windows. If you need to ventilate the room, then place the seedlings under plastic caps or mini-teplichke of glass jars.

Watering seedlings

Pepper loves a lot of water, and its lack of fruit grow it crooked, small and tasteless. Seedlings should be well watered, too: very often, and so that the land was always slightly moist, but not wet. Water for irrigation is necessary to take warm, not below room temperature because cold water sprouts can not only sick, but also to die. In addition, care must be taken that the air is not too dry. Therefore, if you are growing sprouts at home, where he works Heating and air because of this dry, the plant should be sprayed every day, and to ventilate the room, hiding from drafts pepper.

Once the peppers will have the first true leaves, seedlings must be carefully raspikirovat. Then, the seedlings should be well watered. Growing seedlings in pots, they initially put back to back, and then gradually move apart so that the leaves of the seedlings do not cover each other.

Fertilizing seedlings

If the seedling has a dark green color, grows well, it can not feed. But if the seedlings are frail, they should be sure to feed. Specialists generally advise during the distillation of seedlings to feed her twice:

for the first time - when most of the seedlings will appear for three or four true leaf;

the second time - when true leaves will have five or six.

Good dressing is a liquid fertilizer "effect", a cap which is diluted to five liters of water. You can feed the seedlings and bird droppings, which should be diluted with hot water in a ratio of 1:20. It does not need to insist that there was no smell. You can use a complete fertilizer, which is necessary to dissolve one teaspoon to five liters of water. In order to get better benefits, should be to arrange a foliar fertilizer microfertilizers. This is done by spraying.

Hardening seedlings

Two weeks before Bedding seedlings should begin to harden, taught her to fresh air and lower temperatures. To do this, first, you can just open the window or the window in the room, and in the following days, the seedlings make a clear day on the balcony or on the veranda, or even on the street. Gradually increase the residence time of the seedlings outdoors. It should be noted that such a tempering done only when the air already warmed up to 15 ° C. Begin hardening with twenty minutes per day, gradually increasing the time. Experts advise to temper it sprouts and not warmed in warm water seeds.

For two or three days before transplanting peppers in the ground to do its preventive treatment against phytophthora, which in three liters of hot water dissolve a pinch of copper sulphate and boric acid. Cool the solution and spray the seedlings in the morning or the evening before disembarkation.

The seedlings are planted in the ground only after when the soil warms up well and her temperature is above 15 ° C. However, it can be done no earlier than two months after emergence. Only in the southern regions of the seedlings can be planted in six weeks. Pepper planted in a sunny place, well protected from the wind. Ready for planting seedlings can also be determined by appearance. If seedlings from seven or eight to ten of these leaves, and its height is 20-30cm, such seedlings ready for planting in the ground.

From the age of seedlings is particularly dependent harvest of sweet pepper: it grows best fruit on the bushes, the seedlings of which for permanent landed after 80-90 days after emergence, while at the sixty-day seedling crop yields, at times, almost twice below.

Planting seedlings

Before planting the seedlings should be watered so that the land is well softened. On a bed in advance to do the furrows or holes. Seedlings are placed in the same depth at which the growing seedling. That is, it is not necessary dropwise root neck and bare roots. If you grow the seedlings in pots or cups, it can be put directly into the ground with them, cutting the hole in the glass in several places.

Most often seedlings planted as a private way or two-line tape. When the peppers are planted in rows, the distance between them should be about half a meter for hot pepper and sweet for the vegetable and even more - 70cm. In the series between the plants should be 10-15 cm distance to the bitter and sweet pepper 15-30sm for, depending on the variety. It must be borne in mind that the greater the bush, the distance between them should be greater.

Tape method implies that a narrow aisle, the distance between them is 40 cm, alternate with wider - 80-90cm. Among the distance between the plants must be the same as in the first method.

Nonseedlings way

If you are interested in how to grow peppers at home, then you should know that in warmer areas and southern regions it can be grown without prior seedling. In this case, seeds are sown in the soil only when it is warmed to a temperature below 8 ° C, usually not before the middle of April. Seeds covered with soil 2-3cm thick, that is, they should be planted deeper than plant seeds for seedlings.

Another question is whether or not to grow peppers in a way, because at late sowing and harvest will be ready later this pepper, and fruiting period will be shorter. That means there will be less and the total harvest.